HourStack v2.9.0 - New Templates and Better Performance

We are excited to have another engineer join the team! Sebi joins us from New Zealand and he'll be taking the lead on developing our API. If you are keeping up with our roadmap, next we'll be finishing up our new Zapier integration, building a browser integration that will allow you to track time in other apps across the web, and we've begun the planning and design for our highly requested ClickUp integration.

After this next release cycle, we'll get back into focusing half of our time on the core product and half on new integrations. We've got some really great core features on the way that we think you'll love!

Entry Template Updates

Entry templates are a powerful tool in HourStack, allowing you to save one or more entries as templates to be used to create entries in the future. If you have a repetitive series of tasks for each new project, create them once, save them as a template, and then apply the template to your calendar with a single click.

This update provides you with tools to organize your templates within HourStack. You now have access to:

• Shared and private templates. Share templates with your workspace or keep them private to yourself. By default, templates are private. To share a template with your workspace, or to update or delete shared templates, you'll need to have the templates permission. Learn more about managing roles and permissions.
• Folders! I'm not sure an exclamation point is over the top here. Folders are incredibly helpful for organizing your templates, especially if you have a large number of them. You can create both private and shared folders and organize your templates any way you like. Tip: drag one entry onto another to create a folder that contains both of them.
• Drag-and-drop reordering. Another helpful feature for organization is the ability to drag-and-drop to reorder your templates. Between this and folders, you should be able to get the exact organizational structure needed to quickly and easily find and apply your private or shared templates.
• Bulk template actions. Hold Shift and click to select multiple templates. You can then drag-and-drop them to reorder all at once, or select the three-dot menu (...) to pick an action; create a new folder from the selection, move to an existing folder, change visibility between shared and private, or delete.

New Drag-and-Drop Functionality

Drag-and-drop functionality is at the core of HourStack's calendar. Being able to seamlessly drag-and-drop a task from Asana, Todoist, Trello, Google Calendar, or any of our integrations onto your schedule is such a great experience. No more copy/paste or double entry to create a timer for your tasks!

In the latest release, we've rebuilt our drag-and-drop library from scratch. Previously, we were using a third-party library, which worked well for a while, but we were outgrowing it. It turned into a performance bottleneck for larger workspaces and doesn't support some of the more advanced features we have planned.

Our new drag-and-drop library supports all the functionality we had previously and will be a great base for what's next to come! Besides the performance increase, there are only a few other differences that you'll notice. Most of the updates are behind the scenes.

We did remove some of the animations where cards would slide around to open and close gaps. This was done to make the calendar a little less visually busy and to make the specific actions you are taking more clear. Now you'll see a blue line indicating where the card will be positioned, and the UI won't update until you actually drop the card. So you can see exactly where it came from and where it is going until you've confirmed that move. This works for bulk moves as well.

As you use the new drag-and-drop functionality, we'd love to hear your feedback. Click the question mark icon in the upper right-hand corner of the app and select feedback to send us a note in the app anytime.

Education Discount

HourStack has proven to be a great tool for both students and educators. We love hearing the ways in which HourStack helps students stay focused and hit deadlines. To make HourStack available to even more students and educators, we are now offering a 20% education discount! This discount is available on all plans we offer and for annual plans, this is in addition to the existing 20% discount.

You can apply online for an education discount. We'll review promptly, and if accepted, we'll supply you with a coupon code that you can use when setting up your subscription.

The discount is valid for a period of one year and can be renewed as needed. Discounts will not be applied retroactively on subscriptions.

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Drag-and-drop now works on touch devices.
• A report’s date range can now be up to five years, up from two.
• Fix filters not applying in the personal week and team day views.
• Fix new templates not appearing in the sidebar after being created.
• Fix incorrect footer controls in create/edit entry modal.
• Fix template sidebar not scrolling.
• Fix auto-scroll while dragging not working in the week and team day views.
• Fix occasional exception thrown in edit entry screen when selecting members, projects, or labels.
• Fix clipped background color in the week and team day views.
• When entering the name of an entry, pressing Enter to perform some action other than character input will no longer inadvertently submit the form. (For example, a kana-to-Kanji converter will not submit the form on accident.)
• Fix filter dropdowns trying to load more resources over and over.
• On touch devices, the user must now press and hold to begin dragging an entry. This prevents you from accidentally dragging entries while trying to scroll.
• Fix cases where dragging a source into the calendar fails if the app is in the middle of a data refresh.